Tag Archives: Free Novel

I’ve been publishing for nearly 13 years; however, almost 7 years ago, I got very serious about it—I used FastPencil to publish a novel that I now give away on Smashwords…

The weird thing is that I’ve known Smashwords is a very cool place to publish for all those nearly 7 years; but then, I am getting fairly old, so nearly everything looks like too much work; still, Smashwords is the easiest publishing I’ve ever done…

So, why will Smashwords soon be even nicer?

A recent email from them had this:

Heads up. This Friday October 27 we’re kicking off the Smart Author Podcast!

It will be a FREE podcast and will feature the Founder of Smashwords, Mark Coker—a man who just might know more about e-publishing than anyone else on the planet…

Here are some scheduling notes from Mark:

These first four episodes launch this Friday [Oct. 27th]:

Seven Trends Shaping the Future of AuthorshipIntroduction to Ebook PublishingBestseller SecretsHow to Sell More Ebooks with Pre-orders

Plus, the left side-bar has more of my writings that are freely downloadable (a Novel, a Poetry Book, a Fable, and an Essay about Words…) — if you’re on your phone, you’ll have to use your general “Menu” button and find something like “Request Desktop Site” to see the left side-bar :-)

Plus, going to my site on Lulu, will let you download two more free books—a compilation of Spiritual Writings and a book made from my previous Blog…

There’s a video at the end of this post that was the clincher for my experimental use of Wattpad; but, first, here are some takeaways the ALLi article has from that video:

Wattpad users are very mobile savvy and skew towards a younger demographic.

Authors don’t have to write serially, they just need to publish serially.

The Wattpad mobile app is free, and a Wattpad account is also free.

Set a consistent publishing schedule for your chapter releases.

If you already have a free book, it makes sense to leverage it on Wattpad. Use it as a funnel to your other books.

At the end of each Wattpad chapter you can add an author call to action (e.g. sign up to the author’s mailing list, or letting your readers know where to buy the book if they can’t wait for the next installment).

A demographics tab gives you insights into the age demographics of your readers and their geographic location.

Authors can add images or a video to each chapter to increase engagement.

And, in case you’re new around here or you just never noticed, I give away my novel (even though it’s also for sale) over in the left side-bar; so, I decided I’d add a new chapter to Wattpad every Wednesday for the next 20 weeks and append a comment there to draw folks back here…

So, if you’d rather read just a bit of my book each week (instead of downloading it for free and reading the whole thing in about two days {it’s rather short but quite deep…}) Take This Link (you’ll have to register with Wattpad if you aren’t already a member…)

I’ll be periodically reporting results…

And, now, here’s the video with Orna and Elizabeth that convinced me to do the WattpadExperiment:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Read Some Strange FantasiesGrab A Free Novel…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~To Leave A Comment, Use The Link At The Top-Right of The Post :-)For Private Comments or Questions, Email: amzolt {at} gmail {dot} com

So, since I just reassured myself that a book I’d already written has everything I need to say about certain topics (at least in fictional form…), I thought I’d share what those topics are…

The numbers in the following list are the chapters where the topic is predominant:

Notes from An Alien

Corporate Greed – 1, 2

Corporate Control of Populace – 1, 2, 4

Religious Wars – 1, 2, 3

Prophetic Predictions – 1, 3, 5

War-Just/Unjust – 1, 10

Constant Expansion As A Solution – 1, 2, 11

Non-Religious Religions – 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 13

Military Control of Populations – 2

Rational Religion – 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 11

Corporate Ecological Damage – 2, 4, 5

Material Realm/Spiritual Realm – 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, 19

Science and Faith – 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 15

Spiritual Practice – 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11

Costs of War – 3, 4, 5, 10, 11

Governance – 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14

Oneness of All People – 6, 7, 8, 14, 16, 19

Economic Issues – 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13

Altruism and Sacrifice – 7, 9, 11, 17

True Peace – 11, 12, 17, 18, 19

If you’ve already read the book, perhaps you’d like to put a very short “review” in the Comments?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Read Some Strange FantasiesGrab A Free Novel…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~To Leave A Comment, Use The Link At The Top-Right of The Post :-)For Private Comments or Questions, Email: amzolt {at} gmail {dot} com